Hay Group predicts that 192 million employees, or 23.4% of the global workforce, will move from their current role by the end of 2018. This is likely to make engaging and retaining staff even more crucial, meaning nurturing and retaining talent will become a critical business issue.
Shifting global trends in business mean employers will need to radically change the way they engage staff in the future, according to Hay Group report, The New Rules of Engagement, exclusively seen by HR magazine.
The report is based on a global survey of heads of engagement across more than 300 companies.
It suggests the majority (84%) agree companies will need to change the way they engage their staff in the future, although only 30% see positive action taken within their companies to drive this change. Furthermore, only 25% have changed the way they operate personally to cope with oncoming change.
The paper is partly based on the Hay Group report Leadership 2030, which identified six global ‘megatrends’. It claimed trend such as globalisation will shape employment in the future.
Hay Group head of insight for UK Sam Dawson told HR magazine that even over the past 24 months, the UK alone has seen its workforce become increasingly global.
“People in the UK are competing for jobs with people across Europe and wider now,” he said. “It becomes about ways to retain your top talent in a time of so much employee mobility. Our message is there needs to be a shift in how people are managed.”
Around one in six (16%) engagement managers think globalisation is the ‘megatrend’ that they will need to allocate the most resources to cope with.
Keith Astill, divisional director for corporate HR at Nationwide, said the building society’s mostly domestic business model doesn’t mean it is unaffected by globalisation.
“It’s now easier than ever for global competitors to get a footprint in the UK market,” he said. “In a competitive field for retaining and engaging talent, HR has a big part to play in differentiating employer brand.”
Individualisation is another of the six ‘megatrends’ identified as a challenge to future engagement. This is the growing choice available to employees, threatening loyalty and potentially leading to higher turnover. Despite not being as well publicised as globalisation, 29% of engagement managers see this as the change that will give them the biggest headache in the future, the highest of any of the ‘megatrends’.
Rodney Jordan, director of employee communications at Coca-Cola Enterprises, told HR magazine that regularly monitoring workers’ attitudes to their employer is key to mitigating any risk.
“At the moment we do that by employee surveys,” he said. “It’s good to have comparative data that can track commitment to the business, but it may be that we have to rely on more immediate data to keep up with the pace of change in the future. Having an embedded process to monitor and manage engagement will always be a big factor.”
As well as being seen as threats, there are also opportunities to improve engagement through future trends. Digitalisation is seen as the biggest engagement challenge by 26% of engagement managers.
Tesco group colleague insight manager Michael Webley sees it as a positive. He points to the advantage of real-time feedback from employees, increasing a company’s interaction with its workforce, and says this is far from the only advantage it offers.
“It’s useful in L&D,” he said. “Our global workforce can use our digital network, across social media and other platforms, as a two-way knowledge sharing tool.”
